Tag - National Science Teachers Association

500 Soda Geysers at NSTA Convention

Thousands of science teachers found their way to St. Louis for the 2007 National Science Teachers Association convention, and we wanted to make sure they had something to take back to their students. So, we loaded our trucks with experiments and products from the website along with 5,000 rolls of MENTOS stuffed into plastic test tubes and headed for the Gateway City. We were fortunate to have 14 teacher ambassadors from the Hands-on Science Institute join us in the booth to each share their favorite science activities. Aside from 500 bottles of Diet Coke and a mountain of MENTOS, all eyes were on the 18 foot tall soda eruption chamber. We were demonstrating the new Geyser Tube by triggering a MENTOS geyser as fast as we could set-up a launch (about every 2-3 minutes for 3 full days). At the end of the convention, the soda was gone, the rolls of MENTOS were in the hands of 5,000 teachers, the truck was cleaned out… and we all had a blast. It’s back to the classroom for the 14 ambassadors to start working on cool stuff for
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Science for Young Learners Conference – A New Venture for NSTA

The National Science Teachers Association hosted a special day for PreK-2 teachers who want to make science more fun, more hands-on and more integrated into their teaching experiences. The Science for Young Learners Day was the brainchild of Bill Ritz, Professor Emeritus at California State University and the Conference Chairperson for the 54th Annual NSTA Conference in Anaheim, California (April 6-9, 2006). Bill Ritz and his conference planning committee invited me to help them kick-off the day as their morning keynote speaker.

Download a special handout from the morning keynote.

Teachers Advocate Stealing?

I just returned from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) convention in Dallas and the experience was fantastic. The convention organizers knocked everyone’s socks off with a first rate conference. But there was one little probelm. What was the “buzz” this year among teachers? In a word, stealing. The convention opened with the general session speaker who told the packed audience of over 4,000 K-12 teachers to “steal their way to success.” Of course, “stealing” refers to the taking of another person’s teaching ideas, lesson plans, classroom management practices or their favorite science demonstration in hopes of becoming a better teacher. The keynote speaker concluded with, “… if you didn’t like this speech, I’m not offended because I stole it!” This theme of theft prevailed throughout the conference as presenter after presenter jokingly recommended this sort of tongue and cheek robbery. On my way to a session, a teacher stopped me and said, “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve stolen all of your ideas! They’re great.” This was intended to be a compliment, I think. However, my response caught her off guard. “How could you have stolen the ideas if I gave them to you in my
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10,315 Missing Teachers

If your child’s science teacher is not at school today, I’ll put 10 to 1 odds that you’ll find the teacher in Dallas, Texas. Why? It’s the gathering place for close to 25,000 of the best science teachers in the world! Dallas is host to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) convention. Just to give you an idea of the size of the event, the exhibit hall is over 1,000,000 square feet with almost 3,000 vendors. The best part of the convention, however, is the huge number of teacher workshops. Any given hour there are more than 60 concurrent workshops… and you can only pick one. My day started early on Thursday with an 8:00 AM presentation to about 450 teachers and I haven’t stopped but for a few seconds to pour a little Starbucks into my veins for nourishment. If you want to learn more about NSTA, visit their website at www.nsta.org.